be an enemy to the people, and will devise all the harm against them which I can." Now-a-days,
reactionaries are not so frank.
The three things needed to prevent revolution are government propaganda in education, respect
for law, even in small things, and justice in law and administration, i.e., "equality according to
proportion, and for every man to enjoy his own" (1307a, 1307b, 1310a). Aristotle never seems to
have realized the difficulty of "equality according to proportion." If this is to be true justice, the
proportion must be of virtue. Now virtue is difficult to measure, and is a matter of party
controversy. In political practice, therefore, virtue tends to be measured by income; the distinction
between aristocracy and oligarchy, which Aristotle attempts to make, is only possible where there
is a very well-established hereditary nobility. Even then, as soon as there exists a large class of
rich men who are not noble, they have to be admitted to power for fear of their making a
revolution. Hereditary aristocracies cannot long retain their power except where land is almost the
only source of wealth. All social inequality, in the long run, is inequality of income. That is part of
the argument for democracy; that the attempt to have a "proportionate justice" based on any merit
other than wealth is sure to break down. Defenders of oligarchy pretend that income is
proportional to virtue; the Psalmist said he had never seen a righteous man begging his bread, and
Aristotle thinks that good men acquire just about his own income, neither very large nor very
small. But such views are absurd. Every kind of "justice" other than absolute equality will, in
practice, reward some quality quite other than virtue, and is therefore to be condemned.
There is an interesting section on tyranny. A tyrant desires riches, whereas a king desires honour.
The tyrant has guards who are mercenaries, whereas the king has guards who are citizens. Tyrants
are mostly demagogues, who acquire power by promising to protect the people against the
notables. In an ironically Machiavellian tone, Aristotle explains what a tyrant must do to retain
power. He must prevent the rise of any person of exceptional merit, by execution or assassination
if necessary. He must prohibit common meals, clubs, and any education likely to produce hostile
sentiment. There must be no literary assemblies or discussions. He must prevent people from
knowing each other well, and compel them to live in public at his gates. He should employ spies,
like the female detectives at Syracuse.